Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore return to Earth finally after nine months of stay at the International Space Stations due to unexpected delays. Their spacecraft, SpaceX’s Dragon FReedomcapsule, splashed down off the Florida coast near Tallahassee on Tuesday at 5.57 pm (3:27 am IST, Wednesday).
With Sunita and Butch, two more astronauts, Nick Hague and Aleksandr Grebonkin, reached the ISS in December as part of a rescue mission planned by SpaceX and NASA.
Sunita Willams and Butch Wilmore went to the ISS in June last year for a scheduled eight-day mission. Their eight-day journey in space stretched to nine months due to a glitch in their Boeing spacecraft. The duo was the first crew to fly Boeing’s Starliner in a test flight. The faulty capsule came back to Earth last September.
After their 17-year-long journey, the astronauts were out of their scorched capsule after an hour, waving and smiling at the cameras while being hustled away in reclining stretchers for their routine medical checkups.
It is a moment of pride and relief as the whole world comes together to celebrate the safe return of both astronauts.
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) extended a heartfelt welcome to NASA astronaut Sunita for her safe return. ISRO shared a warm message of “remarkable achievement” and appreciated the collective efforts of SpaceX, NASA, and the US in making significant contributions to advance the frontiers of space exploration.
Former ISRO Chief Dr G Madhavan Nair said Sunita’s return to Earth is a “proud moment” for the space community.
Sunita, capping her third spaceflight, will have tallied 608 cumulative days in space, the second most for any US astronaut after Peggy Whitson, who stayed in space for 675 cumulative days. The Russian cosmonaut, Oleg Kononenko,set the world record with 878 cumulative days in space last year.
